1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of computer software and, more particularly, to collaboration software.
2. Description of the Related Art
Collaboration software is software that permits people to exchange ideas and work products in real-time from geographically disperse locations. Collaboration software components can include Web conferencing, video and telephony teleconferencing, instant messaging, chatting, co-browsing, and the like. Effective use of collaboration software can result in substantial time and cost savings because collaboration software can result in effective communications among individuals without requiring the individuals to be located in the same physical location. Communication conducted utilizing collaboration software can be referred to as software-enhanced communication.
At present, conventionally implemented collaboration software lacks the robustness to substitute for interpersonal interactions that occur between geographically proximate people, especially in regards to informal interactions. Informal interactions can refer to interpersonal contacts between people that are conducted without extensive preparation or planning, such as interactions where two or three colleagues exchange ideas in passing. A number of informal interactions are quick affairs, which may involve only a few minutes of time. Informal interactions are made possible through presence awareness inherent whenever individuals are proximately located to each other.
Presence awareness refers to knowing whether an individual is available for communication in a network. When individuals are geographically close, their proximity will afford numerous opportunities for quick communications. For example, interpersonal communications often occur around a coffee machine, during a lunch break, in a hallway, within a smoking area, and the like. Traditionally, collaboration software includes few, if any, features to provide geographically disperse individuals with presence awareness capabilities. Accordingly, coordination overhead for arranging software-enhanced communication can result in an overhead barrier that prevents collaboration software from providing interactions that substitute for proximate interactions. Further, as the number of people involved in a communication session increases, the coordination overhead for establishing software-enhanced communications can increase significantly.
One notable exception to the presence awareness shortcoming of conventional collaboration software is the LOTUS SAMETIME™ application produced by International Business Machines, Inc. (IBM) of Armonk, N.Y. The LOTUS SAMETIME™ application integrates a multitude of collaborative software components together, including instant messaging components, chat components, Web conferencing components, co-browsing components, e-mail components, and the like. The instant messaging component of LOTUS SAMETIME™ application can provide a degree of presence awareness, as all online users can be registered with an instant messaging service. This presence awareness is indicated through the presentation of currently online users within an instant messaging graphical user interface (GUI). The integrated nature of LOTUS SAMETIME™ application permits any of a variety of software-enhanced communications that include instant messaging as well as Web conferencing, chatting, co-browsing, and the like to be initiated from the instant messaging GUI.
The presence awareness capabilities of LOTUS SAMETIME™ application, however, are limited by the manner in which online users are presented within the instant messaging GUI. At present, online individuals registered for instant messaging communications appear within the instant messaging GUI in a haphazard fashion. That is, online users are not presented alphabetically or in a manner which is easily searchable by a user. This shortcoming has generally not been noticed, as typical instant messaging GUIs only display a limited number of registered contacts, i.e. those that have a point of presence. As this number grows, however, the usefulness of the inherent presence awareness capabilities provided within instant messaging GUIs diminishes since online users become increasingly difficult to locate within the GUI. This is especially true in situations involving potentially vast numbers of people, such as the people contained within a large organization, customer base, and/or large scale project. Consequently, the presence awareness capability of LOTUS SAMETIME™ application does not inherently result in usable, large scale presence awareness capabilities that can be applied to large organizations. At present, no other conventional collaboration software or software application extension includes presence awareness capabilities that can be used to enable user friendly, software-enhanced communications between people within a large organization.